Boy, 3, survives fortnight in flat with dead mother

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FOR two weeks after his mother's unexplained death,
three-year-old Michael McGarrity fended for himself alone in their
locked fifth-floor flat. He drank fruit juice and ate whatever he
could find in the fridge.

He used the toilet, got by as best he could. He was too small to
unlock the flat's door and had not learned to use the telephone. In
desperation, he tried to attract the attention of neighbours by
pushing mail through his front door. But for 14 days no one missed
the toddler.

As agencies examined how such a young child could have been
forced to survive alone for so long, he was recovering in hospital
in Edinburgh.

"Michael is improving every day and we are glad he is getting
better. We are hopeful he can leave hospital soon," his uncle,
Kieran McGarrity, said.

"He is beginning to tell us a bit about what happened but it is
very early days and it will be a long time before we know the whole
story."

It is not yet known how Michael's mother, Anne-Marie, 33, died.
Local police said they did not believe there were any suspicious
circumstances. She had asthma.

A neighbour, Moira Chisholm, thought something was wrong for
several days before he was discovered.

"I shouted and shouted through the letterbox and I rapped on the
door," she said. "But Michael never made any sound. Perhaps he
couldn't.

"There were letters hanging out the letterbox. I told the
postman to put them back in, but they kept coming out again. It
must have been him; I should have known."

Michael was discovered in the apartment in Leith, on the
outskirts of Edinburgh, on Saturday. When staff at his nursery
school were unable to contact his mother, they telephoned his
grandmother.

She called the police and on Saturday night they found Michael
by the side of his dead mother. He was badly dehydrated and could
barely stand. He had been playing with his Thomas the Tank Engine
set.

Michael was not known to Edinburgh City Council's social work
department, but the education department said it was reviewing its
procedures after his lengthy absence from nursery school was not
noted.

Neighbours were also questioning why they had not noticed
Michael's plight.

"It's terrible to think of that wee guy in there on his own and
you could maybe have helped him had you been a wee bit more
neighbourly," said a 22-year-old woman, who did not want to be
named.